Privacy Policy - Gardeners Coney Hall

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Coney Hall collects, uses, stores, and shares personal data when providing services to customers in the Coney Hall area. It applies to all Gardeners Coney Hall customers in the area, including prospective customers, current customers, and anyone who contacts us about gardening services. We are committed to handling personal information in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Gardeners Coney Hall provides gardening and related outdoor services to residential and commercial customers in the local area. In the course of delivering those services, we may process personal data about customers, property owners, tenants, contractors, and other individuals connected with a booking or service request.

We only collect and use personal data where it is necessary for operating our services, maintaining records, managing customer relationships, meeting legal obligations, or improving service quality. We do not sell personal data.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We may collect the following categories of personal data:

Identity details such as name and title.
Contact details such as phone number, email address, and service address.
Property and service information such as garden size, access instructions, service preferences, and work history.
Billing and payment information where required for invoicing or payment processing.
Communication records including emails, messages, call notes, and service-related correspondence.
Technical information if you interact with our digital systems, such as basic device or usage data.
Photos and site notes where needed to document work requests, before-and-after conditions, or completed services.

We aim to limit collection to what is necessary and relevant for the service requested.

3. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data to:

provide quotations, schedule visits, and deliver gardening services;
manage customer accounts and service records;
process payments and issue invoices;
respond to enquiries, complaints, and service changes;
maintain health, safety, and site access records;
meet tax, accounting, and other legal obligations;
prevent fraud, misuse, or unlawful activity;
improve our customer service and operational planning.

Where appropriate, we may also use data to keep records of completed work, ensure continuity of service, and support legitimate business administration.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for each type of processing. Gardeners Coney Hall may rely on one or more of the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, such as arranging and delivering gardening services, issuing invoices, and managing bookings.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided your rights and freedoms do not override those interests. This may include record keeping, service improvement, responding to customer enquiries, and internal administration. We consider whether the processing is necessary and whether it has a reasonable impact on your privacy.

Legal Obligation

We may process data where required to comply with the law, including accounting, tax, insurance, and regulatory obligations.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example for optional marketing communications or specific uses of images not required for service delivery. Where consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time.

5. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted processors and service providers who act on our instructions and help us run our business. These may include:

accounting and bookkeeping providers;
payment processing services;
IT and cloud storage providers;
email, messaging, and customer record systems;
professional advisers such as insurers, legal advisers, or auditors;
subcontractors or staff members involved in carrying out the work.

Where a processor is used, we require appropriate contractual protections and expect them to process personal data only for the agreed purpose, securely, and in compliance with data protection law.

We may also disclose information if required by law, court order, or lawful request from a public authority.

6. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information and the reason for processing.

Customer and service records are generally retained for the duration of the relationship and for a reasonable period after it ends.
Financial and tax records are retained for the period required by law.
Communications may be retained for a period needed to resolve disputes, support service history, or maintain records.
Photos and site notes are retained only as long as needed for service documentation, quality assurance, or legal protection.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it securely or anonymise it so that it can no longer identify you.

7. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification – to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
Right to erasure – to ask us to delete personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
Right to data portability – to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used format where applicable.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed.

8. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, limited staff access, and careful management of service records.

Although no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold and to reduce the risk of accidental or unlawful processing.

9. International Transfers

If any of our processors store or process data outside the UK, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place and that the transfer complies with applicable data protection requirements.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is necessary in connection with a household service request and is provided by an adult with authority to do so.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or data handling practices. Any updated version will apply from the date it is made available.

12. Summary of Our Commitment

Gardeners Coney Hall respects your privacy and aims to process personal data responsibly, securely, and transparently. We only collect what we need, use it for clear and lawful purposes, keep it only for as long as required, and take care to work with trusted processors. If you are a customer in the Coney Hall area, this policy explains how your information is handled when you use our services.